Us
by Skellagirl
Summary: Chell patches herself up after a minor run-in with a turret and Wheatley tries to keep it together.


This was written for the Portal Secret Santa over on Tumblr. Hopefully my recipient won't mind me posting it here, as well.

I do not own Portal and am not making any money off of this. :)

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><p>The shriek that came out of Wheatley was nothing less than ungodly. It was a messy blend of terror, shock, disgust, and… well, probably more terror, really, all pushed through his vocal processors before he was really ready, stretched and distorted like somebody was shouting through several <em>dozen<em> tin cans. It was not confined to the little den they were in, bursting out into the cavernous underbelly of Aperture and echoing off the old, rusty machinery beyond. It was just a miracle that _She_ didn't detect them, or if She did, She was being uncharacteristically benevolent.

He was going to say that She hadn't detected them, because "uncharacteristically benevolent" for Her was killing you quickly instead of dragging it out.

What he was shrieking at was a huge gash in the side of his... compatriot? Guide? Whatever she preferred, she was currently kneeling, leaned against the wall, holding her increasingly bloody waist and gasping for breath. Wheatley did not like this gasping thing, not at all. He didn't like the concept of breathing to begin with (How did humans not forget, anyway?), but especially not when it involved laboriously sucking in Aperture's recycled "oxygen" through gritted teeth. She groaned noiselessly, heaving against the wall, and collapsed to a sitting position before pulling the side of her shirt up.

The weird, bluish blankness inside of Wheatley suddenly fizzled away and he jolted, all senses firing, back to life.

"Wow! That is a bit of skin that's missin' there, just a bit," he said, optic flitting around, scanning the immediate area. He was on the floor. The room they were in was a dingy beige color, decorated, if it could be called that, with frantic-looking graffiti and paintings. There were no outstanding features other than a plain metal desk pressed against one wall. He returned his attention to her. "Don't mean to alarm you or anything, alth—although if you _were_ to be alarmed, that would probably be the right reaction, but, uhh, you _do_ seem to be bleeding rather profusely from your side. D'you see that, all that blood, or is it-is it just me?"

She glared at him before taking another large breath. He had seen it happen, or rather felt it, since she had been carrying him with the help of the ASHPD. Turrets could be sneaky when they really felt like it, and while she had only taken one semi-direct hit, the result of being skinned by all those bullets was right here in front of them. The edges of her skin were charred from the hot bullets, and the wound itself was quite large and ragged. The one place where she had been hit seriously was very bloody, but at least it had been shallow enough that she didn't have to fish out any bullets or whatever it was that humans did when they got shot.

"If I recall correctly," Wheatley said, trying to keep his movement under control so as not to have his voice shake, "the more blood you humans lose, the more likely you are to, well, y'know… die. Kick the bucket, as some would say. Out like a light, the eternal sleep. And I mean, I'm sure that dying is really low on your to-do list – well, hopefully not on your to-do list at all – so we should _probably_ get you patched up, huh? What do you say, are you with me?"

Her eyes fluttered closed for a moment, gracefully and frighteningly, her lashes fanning out against her cheeks. Something sparked inside him, something that made him a bit more frantic and panicked than he had been before. She wobbled unsteadily, putting one hand out for balance.

"H-Hey, hey hey hey, stay with me, there, love! Stay with me, come on!" He rolled as forward as he could manage, although that ended up being more to the left due to his service handles getting in the way, until her outstretched hand came to rest on his outer shell. "Please, come on, now's not the time for a nap. You've got to get that fixed or you could die! And I really, really don't want that to happen, alright? You don't want to die, do you? That'd be the easy way out, after all, wouldn't it? And you've never been one for the easy way out… or at least you haven't for as long as I've known you, which, by the way, has been a very pleasant time that I do not want to end any time soon!" He rolled into her leg, nudging her, gaining her attention. She looked down at him with those intense silver eyes of hers. They were wavering between clear and bleary, focused on him, on his optic. She was all dirty and damp with sweat, her hair sticking out in all directions, but still… still as pretty as always. She sighed, wincing as the pain flared. "Alright! Come on, there's got to be something you can use around here."

She rose to her feet, using the wall for leverage, and scanned the area for several seconds. "D'you see anything?" he asked. "I'm not exactly sure, don't have any proper medical training, but I think you might need stitches, maybe? Just for that one bit of… your… body where there's a slight, y'know, hole. I imagine that having a hole in that squishy body of yours is probably quite painful, although I don't know where you would get something to stitch yourself up in this bloody place – Erm, no pun intended."

Of course she didn't respond to him, choosing instead to walk over to the table. From his position on the floor he couldn't see what was on it, but she seemed to be very interested in it. She picked something up - a small, whitish packet – and examined it. She wobbled a tiny bit, something that not many people in the whole world would notice. But he did, because she was usually capable of standing rigidly still on a whim, like a statue. Seeing her wobble was unnerving, if not downright alarming. It revealed her to be _human_, to be something just as fragile and breakable as any other. True, he tended to keep her on a pedestal, a sort of deific pedestal, no less, and it was always… well, it was always _scary_ when that pedestal came crashing down.

"I-Is that it?" he asked, his words coming out a little slurred. "Is that what you need? That's gonna fix you?"

She was working intently now, on something on the table, but she half-turned towards him enough to drop a piece of paper. It fluttered to the floor and came to a rest in front of him, face up. Something tightened inside of him, something hard to explain, a jolt of electricity running from just behind his optic all the way in to his very core. How could she be so perfect that she could just half-arsedly drop a piece of scrap paper and have it land so gracefully, exactly where it needed to be, with the right side up and everything?

He closed the metal lids covering his optic for a moment, trying, _trying_ to gather his thoughts. He had to keep a clear (Metaphorical) head. For himself. For her.

He opened his optic again and read the note. Of course, it took him a wee bit longer than most since reading was an almost entirely foreign concept to him. She had tried to teach him, when they had taken the time to rest, but she usually got frustrated and gave up before much progress was made. Still, this note was short and made up of mostly small words, so, with much concentration, he was able to figure it out.

"You'll probably need these," he read aloud, puzzled. "That's all it says. What's it talking about, exactly, do you—AGH!" He stifled the scream that wanted to come out of him, causing a flare of static to obscure his vision. As it subsided, he became aware that she was staring at him. She was laying on the table, in the middle of stitching herself up. He could see the tiny needle in her fingers, and the long string of thread that caught the light just enough to be visible.

His vision flickered in and out before he managed to get a hold of himself. _Humans_. Why did they have to be so messy and… gross? Wheatley did not think of himself as squeamish, but there was something about seeing her literally sew herself back together that made the Blue Screen seem _inviting_.

She shook her head and returned to her stitches. She was chewing on the inside of her cheek, gently, probably just enough to distract her mind.

"Are those things even sterile?" he asked. "What if this, this _guy_, this mysterious benefactor who keeps leaving all these things for you, what if he poisoned that needle, huh? Or just dropped it on the ground, "Whoops, there it goes! Ah well, a little mud _inside of you_ never killed anybody, did it?" Well, I've got news for you, missy, it probably did! I mean, I'm not sure, but there's probably thousand of undocumented deaths every year caused by people getting mud inside themselves!"

He paused. Now he was just talking for the sake of talking, not really paying attention to what he was even saying, and he was starting to sound rather manic.

"Alright, so, maybe not. Okay. But really – have you had your shots recently, at least? Tetanus, rabies, chicken pox… All very dangerous. We could probably even find some syringes in the medical bay, if you'd like. Oh, wait, a-actually… She destroyed that part of the facility. Never mind!"

She opened a rather large bandage and put it over her side, then wrapped some gauze around her torso to keep it in place. There was barely enough. When she finished, she hopped off the table and twisted a little bit before giving him a satisfied smile.

"Ah, so you're good, then?" he said. She nodded, then walked over and sat down beside him. She leaned against the wall and closed her eyes, taking a long, deep breath. "Waitwaitwait, you can't go to sleep! We've got to keep going before She realizes we're here! And besides, what if you don't wake up? You _have _lost a lot of blood, probably too much, so… so why don't you just stand up, pick up the ASHPD, and we'll keep going, huh? Sound good?"

She shook her head, opening her eyes just enough to fix him with a pointed frown. She held up her hand, all five fingers splayed, waving it a little bit.

"Five… Oh, you mean five minutes?"

She nodded, settling closer into the corner.

He stared at her, his processors blank. He actually could not think of anything to say. Or rather, he had a million things he wanted to say, but he couldn't choose which one to say first.

He was so worried. Worried about himself, worried about their situation, worried about _her_. She always looked tired now, usually working on as little sleep as she could, garnered in the few-and-far-between chances they had to rest. She was pushing herself so hard, she had to be near collapse. She was pushing herself so hard for _them_, for the slim, faint reed of hope and freedom that was always just beyond their reach.

He suddenly felt as sick as was possible for a robot. She was working so hard, running incredible distances, jumping through portals, performing near impossible stunts… And all he could do was offer moral support. He couldn't even transport himself anymore, not without the management rails. He wasn't useless, but he was unsettlingly close.

"Don't die!" he blurted out. She jolted out of sleep, her eyes snapping open and immediately locking onto him. When she realized where she was, she relaxed a little, but she continued to stare at him as his words sunk in. He scrambled for something to say, to break the awkward silence. "Please, don't die, alright? I-I wouldn't be able to survive without you! I don't even know if I would _w-want _to survive without you! I don't want to be alone with your corpse, I don't want to be alone with Her, I don't want to be _alone_! You're the only thing in this entire bloody place who doesn't hate me, or at least—at least if you do, you hide it really well. I just—you can't die, okay? I can't sit here and watch you die, I just _can't_!"

She was staring at him with such intensity now that he was afraid she might burn a hole in him. She was silent for several agonizingly long seconds before, to his shock, she burst into laughter. It wasn't even that awkward, polite sort of laugh that people did when they didn't know what to say, it was the kind of full-on laughter that wrinkled her nose, lit up her eyes, made dimples in her cheeks. Her voice was crystal clear, not at all like he had imagined it.

Wheatley wasn't sure what she was laughing at, or if he should be offended or not, but he was still too shocked to hear her laughing in the first place that he just remained silent. At least she wasn't crying.

She leaned her head back and sighed as her laughter drifted off, and she pushed her hair out of her face before looking at him again. Her expression was soft, at least for a moment, almost nostalgic in a way, and then it faded back to its usual unreadability. She leaned forward and grabbed his service handles.

Wheatley locked up. That spark of electricity shot through him again, from his optic to his core just like last time.

"Wh-What are you doing?" he asked, glancing between her hands and her face and the floor and the ceiling and everywhere in between. Without a word, she dragged him across the floor towards her, creating no small amount of loud, metallic scraping, until he was nestled into her side, the side that she had just finished tending to. She readjusted herself, setting her arms on top of him and resting her head in her arms. He still couldn't decide where to look, but gradually the overload of stimulation to his processors faded and he could think straight again.

After some time – three minutes and thirty-two seconds, to be exact – her breathing changed, becoming deeper and slower. She was asleep. He blinked. It really wasn't so bad right here, cuddled up beside her. He liked it. He didn't know if he was warm or not, but she didn't seem to mind, either way.

Sure, maybe he couldn't do much for her in action, but… but this seemed almost as important. Moral support. That's what he was, and she was evidently okay with that. He knew he was. She was all he had, and he was all she had, too, really. It was relieving to know that she was going to stick with him and not abandon him to fend for himself. He had no doubts that she would be able to survive just fine on her own, and all he did was weigh her down, but, for whatever reason, she was keeping him with her. He was more grateful for that than she would ever know.

Five minutes. She had said (With her hands, anyway) five minutes. He could probably let her have ten.


End file.
